Affirmative Action

Aside from the fact that I can't seem to dissociate this topic from Brent Spiner, it seemed interesting, vaguely relevant to my N-bomb post, and Terry and I have agreed to experiment with requesting blog topics from each other, and he requested this. So, for starters, if any of you have any requests for topics, fire away.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the hardcore left-winger in me is tempted to condemn Whitey for his horrifying abuse of his fellow man and demand reparations, and the logical part of me is tempted to dismiss the whole concept out of hand because, at least by my definition, treating someone differently based on the colour of their skin is racism. Let's consider a few potential arguments for affirmative action:

1. White people stole the ability to make an honest living from black people. The money earned by whites on the backs of blacks was passed down through generations, and today's whites owe it to blacks.
There is some truth to this, but a host of problems too. The problems I see are:
a) How do you quantify who got what and who owes what?
b) If we are to follow principles like this, presumably large parts of North America need to be returned to the Natives, Most of Israel should be returned to Palestine (or was someone there before them?), etc etc. The point is, the changes grow large and impractical in a hurry.
c) Surely some historical whites and many present-day whites have never done anything racist and should not be punished.
d) Crimes demand trials, and how does one try a long-dead slave owner?
These problems are not necessarily unanswerable, but they're not easy, and they're almost certain to displease a lot of people.

2. Blacks have been left in a state of economic decay by slavery, the effects of which continue today. As such, whites must help by [insert some sort of preferential treatment of blacks here].
This one is perhaps a bit more practical, but still has some major problems. For one, it essentially is fighting racism with more racism. It is generally tacitly assumed that the preferential treatment of blacks will be less negative to whites than slavery was to blacks. The details of how to make this occur in a remotely fair fashion remain murky. The reason I say it is potentially more practical is that it can be addressed in a way that helps more black people but is not in fact racist, in my books at least. Specifically, if it is true that more blacks are poor due to the conditions they inherited, then better unemployment and social programs for the poor will result in preferential treatment of blacks without ever having to mention the word black or consider the colour of one's skin. It may be worth mentioning also that colour is a spectrum, and it is not always easy to define whether someone is black or not.

Up 'til now, you're probably thinking I sound pretty opposed to affirmative action. Here's the argument that I find most convincing, despite it being odd:

3. Traditionally, certain types of education are culturally dominated by non-blacks. For example, computer science at the university I did undergrad at was, to a gross approximation, mostly Asian and white, and not black at all. As such, although it is of course available to black people, those that wish to take it are stuck forging a path through cultural unfamiliarity, where they will likely know nobody and may have trouble finding people to work with etc. In practice, racial relations I saw were quite friendly, but the perception that those of a different race are unlikely to be a CLOSE friend persisted. Anyway, the point is that even though blacks can of course take computer science, there are incentives preventing them from doing so in the form of "no other black people are currently doing it".
Now, one can fairly logically dismiss this on the grounds that it's not our responsibility to have equal numbers of races in any given field, that blacks may have some social or genetic predisposition to prefer not doing computer science, or maybe other reasons too. Still, in practice, it is harder for a black person to follow that path than a white one, and if it's not too hard I think it might be worth doing something about that.

So, to sum up, the main points in favour of affirmative action are:
1. A great wrong was committed and never really punished/righted.
2. Blacks continue to face greater barriers in some areas.

The main points against it are:
1. It would be good to NOT submit innocent whites to discrimination on the basis of race.
2. Economic disparities by race can be addressed in a way that is practically preferential to that race, without resorting to any discussion of race, simply by adjusting the way we treat the poor.

So, I essentially would propose the following:
Treat the poor a bit better (especially in the US), and allow organizations to provide extra discriminatory support for ethnic groups FOR NOW. This would have minimal effects on innocent whites. I further would propose that the ability to establish scholarships for certain groups should be tied to the lack of students of that group in that field, for instance, we should not be promoting more males in engineering when the male-female ratio is 85:15, etc. That way there is a certain natural safeguard against it going "too far". Finally, since my proposed solution is essentially a bit unfair in favour of blacks, I think that any such additional assistance should be legally required to exponentially decrease over time. The goal would be that in 100 years or so, there would be no ability to discriminate based on colour, and that IF we had artificially created a situation where there were too many black computer scientists, it would eventually correct itself.

I figure it's either adopt some complicated system like the one above, or go with the simple one: no discrimination based on race for things like university admission, scholarships, pay rates, and so on.